Chapter 69: Footsteps

The Book holds many lessons on life, but each man reads from it his own truth. Many a young scholar has come up to me, troubled by this assertion - for is not the Book an immutable Truth, fixed and perfect?

It is, and it is not. The Book is a mundane object, filled with mundane text. It has been printed by men on paper men made, bound in leather by a man. Its contents have been translated, written and rewritten by human hands. Within its pages one may read the biases and agendas of generations of faithful.

This explanation provokes nothing but further despair in our scholars, of course. I must then explain that there is only one immutable Truth: that of the divine. Each of us carries it within ourselves, each shard of radiant divinity as unique as we are.

The Book is malleable to the hands of men because divinity guides those hands. Where some might see perversion of the text, I see an imprint of the editor’s own guiding light. The divinity refracts through every word on those hallowed pages, making its slow way through the years until it finds a reader who needed to see precisely that phrase.

The words are, perhaps heretically, unimportant. Divinity recognizes a reflection of itself upon reading them, and is overjoyed to know that it is not alone.

- Saleh Taskin, On Reclamation, 687

The road had been paved, once. Some parts of it still were, though in this stretch Michael had not stepped on the city’s orderly grey paving bricks for several paces now. Dirt and broken fragments of stone crunched beneath his boots; he veered left to walk around a crater in the roadway.

Imes had been poorly-treated by the past month’s fighting. What parts of it were intact looked good, beautiful even, so he could not accuse the Safid of neglect during their occupancy. This was war’s mark upon the town. It would feel it again, at least one more time.

Michael closed his eyes and drew in a breath. His eyelids did not impede his vision in the least anymore, but the gesture helped him to relax. All around him the mirrorlight danced away from edges and surfaces, swirling around the forms of men. Above him and to the right it sharpened; he turned his sight to look just as a woman pulled her window shutters closed.

The fearful look on her face persisted in his vision for a moment. A frown grew on his face. Imes did not much feel like a city being liberated. He felt the swell of dim emotion from all across the city, and it overflowed with fear, uncertainty, fatigue. Some joy, yes, but even those who welcomed the end of Safid rule knew that it would not depart without incident.

The thought of that incident loomed in Michael’s mind, amorphous and leering from every blind corner, every half-shuttered window that overhung their path between the low and quiet buildings of the outer district. Lines of intent sharpened and waned wherever he looked, quiet echoes of malice echoing from the alleyways.

“These are my men,” Antolin had said, looking at him with weary eyes. “Today they are in your care. I won’t say that they must not die, because we are at war; men will die. I only ask that your actions today demonstrate the value you place on their lives.”

The grand marshal had turned towards his own group and walked off, leaving Michael alone with his small contingent of soldiers - several dozen soldiers, a small team of artifices, a few assorted radiomen and engineers.

Now he walked in their midst. Michael watched as one of the Mendiko artifices bent down to address the crater in the road, the shattered cobbles flowing into a loose honeycomb lattice that filled the void. A few moments later the top solidified, leaving only an unbroken expanse of stone.

The group did not slow or stop for the repair; the artifex straightened up and jogged back toward the center of the group where Zabala walked, radiating his usual sense of watchful ennui. Behind them, trailing the group, a long column of Mendiko tanks rumbled forward.

They had been walking in this fashion for nearly an hour now, past empty streets and plazas strewn with the detritus of hastily-abandoned life - when the head scout slowed, his emotions coming awake with a surfeit of wary tension.

A spike of adrenaline coursed through Michael’s gut; his head came up. The golden latticework of the world pressed on his vision with such force that it was a few moments before he saw the true reason for the pause: ahead of them a building facade had collapsed outward, toppling a lamp post and crushing a pair of unfortunate carts. The cascade of brick was blocking most of the street ahead, leaving only a tiny space to one side.

A few of the artifices stepped forward, Charles among them - he reached into the pile and tapped on the lamp post, the ornately-cast iron shuddering off a coat of corrosion and scale as it flowed out between the rubble.

He caught Michael watching him work and flashed him a jaunty smile, his eyes glinting in the ray of golden light that blossomed beside his head. Michael’s thoughts seemed ponderous, frozen in crystalline horror as he recognized the light for what it was.

Something of it must have shown in his face. Charles threw himself down, the formless remains of the post flashing up into a curved shield that rang like a gong when the bullet struck. The noise of the ricochet snapped down the street; the soldiers reacted to it by reflex.

The artifices were slower. Another artifex, the stone shaper standing farthest from Zabala, fell back with blood gushing from his eye. Another swore and pressed a hand to her thigh, lurching behind the barrier of stone her fellow artifices raised a moment later.

Michael crouched where he was, his heart pounding. The soldiers had all found cover, either with the artifices or in the varied urban terrain; gun barrels peeked forth from doorways and out of alleys, searching for the source of the gunfire. No more came. The Mendiko lieutenant shouted something abrupt that spurred a small team of soldiers to scramble towards the front.

Zabala jumped up from where the artifices were huddled, running towards the advancing team. Rifle fire cracked the air once more, and one of the soldiers spun to the side. His hand clutched at his shoulder but came away bloodless; Zabala dragged him down to the ground with an exasperated grunt.

The fortimens shouted irritably back at the lieutenant, who responded in kind; Michael had yet to move. It had been no time at all since the first gunshots of the fight, yet he felt like he had been crouched there half the morning. The shouting of the soldiers blurred together with the stream of invective from the wounded artifex.

His mind seized upon the thought that Michael was supposed to be protecting everyone, but found no useful purchase. There were no Safid in evidence, no charging mob of men to rout. Panic presented itself as an option, and though part of him very much wanted to indulge he shoved it away.

Today they are in your care.

Michael stretched Stanza outward until all around him gleamed golden and bright to his vision, yet still no threats appeared. It was only when a second team of Mendiko soldiers darted towards Zabala’s position that faint rays of light traced outward; before he could do more than note their existence the bullets struck, although none connected.

The Mendiko returned fire. Their guns rattled the avenue, shattered glass tumbling down from the windows that had drawn their attention. Another flash of light rippled out in the corner of Michael’s vision, this one pulling at older memories; his head snapped to the side in time to see an ethereal blade gouge a furrow into the artifices’ stone shield.

Multiple gunmen opened fire from around them as another blade raced out, yet still no obvious attackers presented themselves. Finally, Michael’s mind seized a useful thought from the formless panic swaddling his consciousness: the attackers were using a soul like Sobriquet’s.

More thoughts fell into order around that nucleus of reason. This was a prepared ambush. They had set themselves up where they knew the soldiers must stop to clear the debris. The Safid had chosen this place specifically to kill advancing soldiers; it stood to reason that if they lingered here, that would come to pass.

He foundered on the cold implacability of that conclusion for a moment, then stood. No solution to the ambush had presented itself as he had thought on it, only Antolin’s admonition echoing with each gunshot.

Another scattered fusillade hit their position; a bullet struck Michael in the chest. He barely felt it, walking up to where the debris blocked the road.

The fallen artifex was there when he reached the debris. The man’s face was slack where it still existed, the rest reduced to a ruin of indeterminate, meaningless anatomy. Michael’s sight stuck on the eye that remained. It had seen, moments before.

Michael had crouched when the man died, and risen when he recalled Antolin’s words. He felt a burst of shame as the thought occurred to him, his priorities seeming suddenly twisted and horrid amid the stark reality of gunfire and drying blood.

He pushed his melancholy roughly aside, straightening up to look out at the apparently-empty roadway. More gunfire came from the Safid, some striking him - he saw the fabric of his trousers fray and tear as a round impacted his shin, while another tore a strip from his shirtsleeve.

Unbroken skin showed through the hole in his shirt; Michael’s stomach clenched. He felt ready to vomit, but a laugh burst forth instead. It was a horrible noise, unmoored from any reason. He wiped at his mouth and looked up towards the enemy he could not see.

“My name is Michael Baumgart!” he shouted, taking a step forward. He planted his feet on the pile of fallen brick, climbing higher until he was standing atop it. With the empty road before him, he shifted his grip on Stanza, felt the taste of it on his tongue. It was not enough to announce his own name. The Safid had stolen it, made the words into something dire. He drew a breath, and spoke that name instead.

“I am Michael Baumgart,” he said, and this time dust shuddered down from the remnants of the ruined facade. The gunfire stopped. Michael took another step forward. A thin line of golden intent formed through the smoky air, trained upon his chest. Another followed, then another; they trailed off into indistinct haze halfway across the avenue.

Michael spread his arms, watching the lines grow, feeling the malice suddenly pouring from hidden pockets within the surrounding buildings, from craters and alleys in front. He felt it, watched it build. Spark was oil on his lips, vibrating with the draw of that violent thought; insidious command rang through his voice when he spoke.

“Come and be tested.”

The first Safid soldier charged immediately, appearing in the middle of the road as if he had merely escaped Michael’s notice before. A Mendiko bullet found him before he had taken three steps. Dozens more followed to strike Michael, feeling like drops in a hard rain.

Golden lines disappeared ahead of a broken shop window. Michael pointed to it, calling out; the Mendiko fired upon it. Zabala’s arm blurred, whipping a grenade across the span in between. The storefront burst into smoke and splinters. The obfuscating blur faded, dying men staggering out into the street.

Michael did not focus on it, ignoring the burn in his chest as he pivoted and called out another nexus of lines. The sequence repeated twice more before the Safid broke and charged en masse. They were deafening, fear and fury and conviction echoing back from the watchful buildings around them. At least two dozen men poured from their hiding spots as Michael watched.

The first men to emerge died to Mendiko fire, their comrades hurdling past their corpses with bayonets fixed. One ran low and fast up the debris pile to swipe at Michael’s legs; Michael caught the rifle as it bounced off his knee, ripping it from the man’s grasp and jamming the buttstock into his nose.

The splash of crimson was larger than he had expected; he had forgotten Galen’s soul, in the moment. The phantasmagoria spun onwards even so. A man fired at him from a window across the road only to be shot in turn by an opportunistic Mendiko tank, sending another hail of bricks down to the road. Charles leapt over the artifex barrier in a storm of whirling iron, while Zabala threw another grenade so fast that it whistled.

The Safid scalptor dived away from that explosion, his eyes still locked on Michael. The air turned sharp between them. The taste of a blade soul turned Michael’s stomach, striking him with the weight of memory. For a moment he was twelve, huddled in the hall while his father’s anger lashed him - and then the blades struck.

They stung, far worse than the bullets, but left no mark on his newly-impervious skin. The scalptor’s face screwed up in anger and disbelief before a gunshot sounded and his eyes went wide. The man’s hands scrabbled down to clutch at his chest. Bright red arterial spray burst forth as he sagged down, then collapsed.

Michael held his breath, waiting, but the ache by his heart subsided. The street quieted. The Mendiko soldiers peered from around their makeshift cover.

“Lordling!” Charles called out. Some of the Mendiko soldiers startled at his sudden raucous cheer, but the artifex paid them no mind; his smile was glaring white against the borrowed Safid blood soaking him. “Let’s lead with that next time.”

Several impolite phrases occurred to Michael, half of which described a certain Ardan captain’s tactics; he kept quiet and turned to look at the fallen artifex still dribbling his blood into the dusty rubble.

“Yes,” Michael sighed. “I suppose I should probably walk in front.”

There were no more ambushes of that scale waiting for them, as it happened, although two lone snipers did take potshots at their team; bereft of support from masking souls, those few attackers did not manage to do more than reveal their positions before dying. They paused in their advance when they had cleared up to the city’s market square, standing aside to let the armor pour forth into the plaza.

Michael’s group was directed back to a mid-city staging area then, a converted Ardan camp that now teemed with Mendiko faces. Most of the soldiers split away from their group as they arrived; Michael guided the artifex who had been wounded towards the medical tents.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t do a very good job on it,” he said, helping the woman limp across the flagstone. “It looks stiff.”

The artifex raised an eyebrow at him. “I’m not dead,” she said. “That’s decent enough for a start.”

He laughed and helped her the rest of the way to the triage tent, where he passed her off to some harried orderlies. Michael walked outside and turned towards the camp’s command post when he spotted Luc ducking out of a nearby tent.

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Luc saw him too, walking over with a faint smile. The two men shook hands. “Right back in it?” Michael asked. “It seems like things are busy here.”

“They are,” Luc said, looking out over the tents. “Quite a few wounded in the advance, the Safid had prepared positions ahead of time.” He looked at Michael’s shirt. “But you already knew that, yes?”

Michael looked down; his shirt was shredded in front, missing its right sleeve. His trousers were little better, though thankfully still modest. “We did see an attack,” he said. “One dead, a few wounded. I was just dropping one off here.”

“You did better than most, then,” Luc sighed. “Other patrols came back with dozens wounded. We’ve been working flat-out since we arrived, and not with soldiers alone. Locals stuck in the fighting, too scared to come out for aid. Only about half of those in the tents are soldiers, I’d say.”

“Good thing they’ve got you,” Michael said.

Luc did not smile. “It is,” he said. He looked away, watching the men moving through the camp, then turned back to Michael. “I’m going to stay here, after the fighting is done.”

Michael raised an eyebrow, his attention fully on Luc; he had not picked it apart from the jangling emotions of the medical tents before, but Luc was vibrating with nervous energy. “Permanently?” Michael asked.

“Maybe not permanently,” Luc said, managing to sound halfway-casual despite his evident nerves. “But there’s people who need me here - and I think that will still be true after the Mendiko leave. It’s a big city, and it’s been hurting since long before the siege started.”

“I imagine so,” Michael said, looking Luc over; when they had come across him not far from here, back in Sever’s camp, he had been a starved wretch. Now he looked nearly as healthy as he had back on Spark’s island, although he still lacked the easy smile he had shown then.

Michael offered his smile instead, and his hand - his left, with the sharp demarcation at the wrist. Luc’s eyes widened briefly before he shook it, still wearing his Mendiko-issued gloves.

“I’m glad you’ve found something you want to pursue,” Michael said. “Truly. You deserve a bit of happiness after everything that’s happened.” He released Luc’s hand. “But if you ever need me, just ask.”

It was, somehow, the wrong thing to say; Luc’s smile died. “I’m sorry,” Luc said. “I appreciate you saying it, and you’ve been so good to me despite everything, I-” He broke off, flushing, and looked to the side. Michael let the silence linger, half because he didn’t know what to say; Luc’s sudden shift in tone had been jarring.

Eventually, he looked back at Michael. “If I am going to find happiness in this world, I have to look for it far from you.”

Michael blinked; he had not known what Luc would say, but this was far beyond his expectations. “If I’ve done something to offend you-”

Luc was already shaking his head. “You’re a good person, Michael,” he said. “You try so hard to give everyone what they want, and they love you for it. But they keep asking for more.”

“Is this about Leire?” Michael asked. “I think Antolin will keep a closer watch on her now. It took us all by surprise, but him most of all.”

Luc ran his fingers through his hair, not meeting Michael’s eyes. “It’s her,” he said. “But not only her. Antolin, Sobriquet - they believe that you can fix everything that’s wrong in the world. They’re probably even right. But the world won’t roll over and let you do as you please; the world is made of dangerous men who will be driven to desperation by your power.”

He looked up and met Michael’s eyes. “No matter how powerful you become, you can’t control that. The harder you push, the more desperate they’ll become. And you, you’ll be fine. But the rest of us are standing under the growing storm, hoping we don’t get struck by that lightning.”

A well-worn frustration grew at hearing Luc’s words; Michael frowned. “You know that the alternative to this is letting Saf trample over the whole continent,” he said. “What would you have me do, stand aside and pretend I don’t have the ability to shape the world? Go off and live on a farm like Jeorg did?”

“Wasn’t that what you wanted, once?” Luc asked. He glared at Michael, exasperated. “Must you be incomparable? Because the world tries to match you, and when it can’t, when there’s nothing to push back against your overwhelming influence, the result is a spasm of chaos that inflicts itself on everyone caught in the middle.” His lip curled. “Not Smoke and Sibyl, not Stellar cackling behind her glass - the people here, in these tents, who are coming apart faster than we can put them back together. I have to look at it every day, damn you! Would it be so hard to pretend to be less than what you are, if the alternative is torment for the undeserving?”

The volume of his voice had grown steadily as he spoke, until he drew looks from passers-by; Luc’s eyes widened when he realized they were being watched, and the fire left him. “I’m sorry,” he said. “This isn’t how I wanted to go. I wanted to - to wish you happiness, and good luck, and to thank you for being my friend.”

He looked to the side. “Because you have been a friend to me, of the best sort. I just can’t stand beside you anymore. There’s too much pain left in your wake. I want to stay here and watch the storm pass elsewhere, and help as many people as my power permits.” He managed a small smile. “A life of quiet good - and a shorter life than yours, so that I can die pretending that I have two normal hands, and pass it all back to you. That’s how we’ll meet again, in whatever beautiful world you make - and you can tell me how foolish I was to fear it.”

Michael was taken aback at the tirade, at its sudden fall as much as its rise. Some of Luc’s points resonated; others seemed annoyingly naïve. He spent a moment existing with the half-formed responses drifting through his mind. Eventually, looking at Luc’s downcast form, he decided that he would prefer to respond to the latter part.

“You’ve been a friend to me too,” Michael said. “And I’m sorry if I’ve caused you pain.” He looked out at the tents. “If I’ve caused anyone pain. It wasn’t my intention.”

Luc nodded, managing a smile. “I know,” he said. “And I don’t mean to lay it at your feet. Down here all you see is the - contrast.” His smile faded, and he shook his head. “But I know. It helps, to know that there’s probably hope in the end.”

He looked up, a wan smile returning to his face. “Say goodbye to Unai for me,” he said. “I stopped going to his lessons after Leire did - what she did to you. He’s a good man even if he can’t see her for what she is. I owe him a lot.”

Luc met Michael’s eyes and nodded. Then he turned and walked away.

It was later than Michael had intended to return to the command post, still feeling somewhat dazed from the day’s prior events. There were only a few of Antolin’s command staff present when he entered; after a moment, however, Michael spotted Antolin himself sitting in the corner looking over a report.

The grand marshal looked up as Michael approached, a smile cracking his weathered features. “Michael,” he said. “I heard you had a successful mission.”

Michael grimaced. “We cleared the road up to the plaza,” he said. “I wasn’t prepared for the Safid. They ambushed us from cover, with a few ensouled to mask them.”

“Yes, we encountered something similar,” Antolin sighed. “Fortunately it appears to have been a harrying tactic rather than a serious attempt to bar us from the city; for whatever reason Saleh seems to want to keep the fighting inside of Imes.” He looked up at Michael, a wry twist to his mouth. “For the moment I’m inclined to indulge him. There’s too much benefit to securing the Ardan half of the city, for our tactical position and for morale. But it will prove messy once the fighting starts in earnest.”

“It was - chaotic,” Michael agreed. “I was able to draw them out, but not before I lost one of our artifices.” He shook his head. “I’m sorry.”

“Five men died in my group,” Antolin said. “The Safid are very good at that sort of ambush, given that they’re willing to die in the attempt.” He raised an eyebrow. “Of the five teams we had clearing major avenues into Imes for our armor, yours had by far the lowest casualty count. The northernmost team lost nearly half its soldiers, including the entirety of their artifex corps and the front of their armor column. If not for Sobriquet masking their retreat they’d have no men at all left; that avenue remains under Safid control.”

Michael’s mouth twisted, but he inclined his head; Antolin stood with a smile on his face.

“You don’t like it,” the grand marshal said. “Good. Get better. We’ll have harder trials from the Safid before we’re through.” He looked at the report in his hand, weariness reasserting itself. “Starting with that northern route.”

There was a map on the tent’s central table; Michael looked and saw the great stretch of city still colored in Safid blue, the creeping tendrils of Mendiko gold only extending partway into its core. Blocks and blocks of buildings, tenements, businesses.

“Do you think Saleh wants to keep the fighting in the city because the people are there?” Michael asked. “To keep you from using Leire in a direct strike?”

Antolin made a face. “The thought had crossed my mind,” he said. “Which troubles me, because Taskin has no need of hostages to keep him safe from Leire; his soul serves as a perfect match to hers. If the Safid are hiding within the city then it points to a disturbing conclusion.”

“That he’s not here at all,” Michael muttered. “So where, then?”

From his pocket Antolin pulled a familiar book, tossing it on the table. “I’ve been studying the damnable thing every night,” he said. “And though I believe I understand him somewhat better, that’s not an answer I’ve stumbled upon. If you want to have a look yourself, you’re welcome to try.”

Michael looked down at Saleh’s battered copy of the Book of Eight Verses. “No, thank you,” he said. “I’ve got enough rampaging around in my head already.”

Antolin gave him an evaluating look. “Are you well?” he asked.

“Well enough,” Michael replied. “Just - not used to war, and not sure I want to be. I don’t like being the agent of so much pain and hatred, even indirectly.”

The grand marshal nodded slowly. “Every step you take crushes something,” he said. “Grass, flowers, insects. We leave a trail of destruction in our wake by the simplest of actions.” He snorted. “When I was younger I sailed down to Tsekh, there are men there who won’t dare to kill a living being. They eat only fruit, and walk only on sand or stone. They have solved that problem to their satisfaction. They also live pointless lives, dying emaciated and unaccomplished.”

“But the pain we cause impacts people, not grass,” Michael pointed out.

“It does,” Antolin said. “So we must step very carefully indeed. But if we do not cross the city, or the country, or the continent - Taskin will. And if I’ve learned one thing from his scribbles in that book, it is that he does not spare a single thought for what falls under his feet while he follows his vaunted path.”

Michael looked down at the book once more, then slowly reached up and slid it into his pocket. “I think I will take a look, if only for tonight,” he said.

Antolin laughed. “Bring it back when you’ve finished,” he said. “I find that I’m actually interested to know how it all ends.”

“Aren’t we all,” Michael muttered. “Good night, Antolin.”

“Goodnight, Michael,” the grand marshal replied. “And pick yourself up some new clothing before tomorrow’s mission.”

He looked down; his clothing was still in dirty shreds. “I had forgotten,” he said sheepishly.

Antolin leaned back in his chair. “I won’t,” he said. “The book tells me everything I need to know about Taskin. That shirt tells me everything I need to know about you.” He looked pointedly at the bullet holes and jagged tears raking Michael’s clothing. “There should have been twenty dead on your team, and you’re wearing all but one of them.”

Michael looked down again, if only to hide the flush on his cheeks; past Antolin’s implacable soul he had caught the flavor of real, sterling pride shining through. He felt he should respond but couldn’t think of the words; Antolin waved him away after a moment had passed.

“Go, rest,” Antolin said. “And don’t worry. You’re doing fine.”

Michael nodded and walked out into the evening, feeling the cool air on his skin; it was beginning to feel like autumn in truth. Still, a hardy tuft of grass poked up from between some flagstones in his path, green and proud amid the wasteland of grey slate.

He stepped around it, and went off in search of sleep.

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